Mayoral candidates Clancy Pfeiffer and Dan Cougill both agreed at a forum Thursday evening that something needs to be done to improve relations between the city and the university.

What they disagreed upon was how that was going to happen and to what extent it should happen.

Pfeiffer said he was very much against the proposed rental property inspection ordinance and said he thought it was “too intrusive.” Pfeiffer argued that there are currently laws in place that protect the health, safety and welfare of students and the proposed ordinance was not needed.

He said if any students had problems with their rental property, he would be receptive to their complaints and try to work with them to come up with a solution.

“I feel that (the proposed ordinance) goes way too far,” Pfeiffer said.

Cougill, however, strongly supports the proposed law for several reasons. Cougill said he visited two different communities, looked at their inspection policies, and brought them back to the city council for discussion.

Landlords from the area had concerns with the proposed ordinance, and Cougill said the city council made efforts to compromise with the landlords by limiting the ordinance to only effect rental properties and omitting the inspection fee.

Cougill said landlords claimed warrants could be obtained to inspect houses. Cougill said he found ways to obtain warrants for five houses that looked beautiful from the outside, but he and the council questioned the inside.

Upon entering for inspection, inspectors found things such as leaky roofs, faulty carbon monoxide flues and fire hazards that endangered students’ safety and welfare.

Cougill said the landlords’ carelessness is the exact reason why Charleston needs an inspection policy. He said that most students are not knowledgeable about the safety codes of rental properties, and it is Charleston’s responsibility to make sure students have safe housing, saying the proposed ordinance would be funded through tax money.

Both candidates do agree, however, that the bar entry age should not be lowered to 19. Pfeiffer denied allegations that his supporters had been going to student organizations, namely sororities and fraternities, to recruit voters. Pfeiffer continued to say he was strongly against the lowering of the bar entry age.

“I cannot be a party in lowering the bar age,” he said.

Pfeiffer said instead of lowering the bar age, he would try to build more of a social atmosphere to keep students coming to Charleston.

Cougill described Charleston, when he came back from being in the Air Force for about 30 years, as “gone to hell in a hand basket,” and he attributed it in part to the lowering of the bar entry age to 19. He said that when the bar entry age was 19, the bars attracted high school students along with college students whom he said “just didn’t mix.”

After he was elected and raised the bar entry age back to 21, he said Eastern retreated from Playboy’s list of top party schools and placed itself on a list of the best universities in the Midwest as well as the nation.

Cougill also said the number of fights decreased, and despite fear by many that the number of house parties would skyrocket, the number of complaints dropped 71 percent.

The recent proposition of widening Fourth Street also was an issue discussed.

Pfeiffer said he was against the widening of Fourth Street and believed that to make traffic move faster, the road didn’t necessarily need to be widened. He also said he didn’t want to see trees uprooted in order to widen the street; however, he was in favor of repairing the bridge on Fourth Street.

When asked about the Campus Master Plan, Cougill said he had three specific problems with it. First, he said he didn’t want to move married housing to Lincoln Avenue between Ninth and 10th streets because there would be more danger to children because of less yard space.

Second, he said he didn’t want to put the Visitor’s Center at its proposed location between Seventh and Ninth Streets on Lincoln Avenue because he believed it would be putting it at “the back door” of the university.

Lastly, he said he had a problem with the proposed location of a Convocation Center. The plan places it on Lincoln Avenue between Fourth Street and Division Street. Cougill said he believes that area is too congested. In addition, it was an area that generated a lot of revenue for Charleston.

Pfeiffer said he believed that the relationship between the city and Eastern was lacking and that he hoped to improve the relationship if elected.

Cougill said, however, that he had worked hard during his term as mayor to develop a relationship with Eastern and its administration and faculty and would, if elected, continue to develop those kind of relationships.